A small improvement which still leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It is the one achieved by Sicily in the ranking drawn up in the report Administrators under fire Of Public Notice. Under the magnifying glass cases of intimidating acts, threats and violence against mayors, councilors, city and municipal councilors, regional administrators and public administration employees. Episodes of this kind will occur in 2023 there were 315 in totalwith an average of one case every 28 hours. It’s about the data lowest since 2011 at a national level, while the peak was recorded in 2018 when the episodes had even been 574. The territory with the highest number of intimidations – 51 – is that of Campania. There are some to follow Calabria and Sicily, at 39 and 35 respectively. For the island, however, this is a small improvement if you consider that in 2022 there were 50 cases recorded.
For the first time in relationships Administrators under fire the verbal threats and threatening phone calls appear to be the types of threat most used nationally (17 percent of cases), followed by fires (15 percent, down slightly), sending letters, cards and threatening messages (14.5 percent, stable) e the use of social networks (13 percent, increasing). At provincial level, in Sicily, the ranking is led byin the province of Palermo with 12 cases recorded, then there is Catania and Agrigento with 8 and 7 episodes of intimidation. The ranking is completed by Trapani (3), Syracuse (2), Messina (2) e Ragusa (1).
Among the most striking cases of 2023 is the one that occurred in Terrasini, in the province of Palermo. On that occasion a man, who had been informed of the revocation of citizenship income. he broke into the mayor’s room, dousing it in petrol and threatening to set everything on fire. TO Messinainstead, the commander of the local police, Giovanni Giardina, was attacked by two men during a check against illegal street vendors. The agent came brutally beaten with pincers. The September 17, 2023 the head ofVillabate technical office he was attacked by a trader over a matter relating to the issuing of an authorization.
In 14 years of data collection Public Notice has 5,388 acts of intimidation were registered on the national territory, of threats and violence towards local administrators and public administration staff working in Italy. The average is 385 intimidations a year, 32 every month, one a day. The four regions where historical mafias were born – Sicily, Calabria, Campania and Puglia – recorded 3,110 cases from 2010 to 2023, 58 percent of the national total. The first region is Sicily with 862 cases registered in these 14 years of data collection by the association founded in 1996 to bring together public administrators who are committed to promoting the culture of democratic legality.
